A writer’s sentence

Erwin James served 20 years in British prisons. It proved to be a good apprenticeship for a writer. As part of a recent literary festival, James visited an Irish prison where he talked with inmates about his life inside, and outside, as a writer.

In 1984, Erwin James was sentenced to life in prison, for a “crime of massive violence”. He won’t say what it was. The judge recommended he should serve at least 14 years. He did his time quietly.

“I learned prison very well.

“By the time I’d done 10 years in prison, I thought, I’ve mastered this.

“I am who I should have been. I am authentic.”

He had, he hoped, four years left to serve. One day, he was called into the governor’s office. “I’ve got some bad news for you,” said the governor. “Sit down.”

“I’ll take my bad news standing,” James said. (“I was a bit cocky like that.”)

“I think you should sit down,” the governor said. “I’ll stand,” said James.

The governor gave him a one-page letter. It was from the Home Office. As a result of a legal challenge, the Home Office had been obliged to write to all “lifers” and inform them precisely how much time they would serve. The letter said Erwin James would serve 25 years.

James sat down.

“I was just wiped out. With the stroke of a pen. I thought, they don’t care. They don’t care if I do a degree, if I do a charity run…”

He had gone in to do 14 years (he hoped) and had done 10. Now, he was facing another 15 years.

“It was a bit odd, psychologically.”

Erwin James is not given to emotive overstatement. He speaks quietly, calmly; his temperament, erudition, and English accent give him something of the aspect of a vicar, which is incongruous, considering the context.

James is speaking as a former lifer to a room full of lifers, and others on long sentences, in a classroom in Castlerea Prison, Roscommon. (The event is part of the Galway-based Cúirt literature festival.)

No prison-related identity

When he talks of prisoners, he uses “we”, yet he disavows this as an identity.

“I don’t think of myself as an ‘ex-offender’, an ‘ex-prisoner’, an ‘ex-con’. I don’t have any identity relating to prison at all.

“Prisoners are not some kind of ethnic group that can be all lumped together.”